the vynsane asylum

anarky wrote:There are a lot of things Lucas lifted straight from the John Carter of Mars books. The names "sith" and "bantha" come to mind. Also his fascination with desert planets.

I thought the desert thing came from Dune.

Edit: Found this: http://moongadget.com/origins/index.html

It lists all of things that influenced Star Wars, including Dune, 2001, Flash Gordon, & Kurosawa films.

anarky wrote:There are a lot of things Lucas lifted straight from the John Carter of Mars books. The names "sith" and "bantha" come to mind. Also his fascination with desert planets.

and, arguably as important as "sith" if not more-so, "jed" -> "jedi".

In my defence your honour, I was dog tired when I posted.

My post wasn't really about pointing a finger and making an accusation it was more about GL wanting to do one project but not being able to and then surreptitiously making it anyway. And knowing the movie of Flash Gordon was in production, tempering ESB to be even more Flash Gordon-esque. Like a big 'fuck you!' to it. It's what I'd do. And from everything I've seen of GL I know he's an obstinate SOB with a rebellious streak. I can see him steering McQuarrie toward designs that looked more FG.

Anyway, I'm not going to dwell on it. I'm going back to puzzling out a death star set layout.

Also I just popped for the making of ANH, ESB and ROTJ books in hardcover. Thought I'd better get them now before they're out of print and get stupid expensive. Not that £26 isn't already stupid expensive but you know what I mean.

Here's one you may not have noticed. The model of the Death star command tower housing the Emperor's throne room has windows that don't match the live action set. On the model the windows have five bars and a solid centre hub. Whereas as you know the live action set windows had a sort of spider web affair. However, the set did originally have those five bar windows during construction. Which I spotted in a photo that I forgot to save. I thought it ws just a temporary support structure holding the window frame rigid until the sider web part was fitted but it seems it was the approved design. So the model wasn't wrong until someone had the bright idea to change the set close to filming. I guess GL or Marquand took a look at the set and thought the windows were uninteresting or ugly and asked for a redesign. It's not like it's obvious if you aren't looking for it.

I was just watching a documentary on 80 years of Pinewood studios. Fairly light on real insight but they did visit the water tank stage where the descent to Otoh Gunga was filmed. The guy being interviewed revealed that the respirator aparatus the Jedi use is actually two spark plugs from a car welded to a mouth piece.

Which is obvious once you look at it. Inspired by the device sported by Sean Connery's James Bond in Thunderball, also filmed at Pinewood.

In the visual dictionary for TPM the device took on a much more polished design.

Interestingly, the idea then came full circle in 2002's Die another day with Pierce Brosnan sporting a mini respirator.

Ha. As a little kid I always thought those were real. It never occurred to me Connery was holding his breath and y'know...acting.

I always thought the massive underground villains lairs were real locations. It was quite the revelation to discover it was all plywood and styrene and plastered veneer.

One other thing from this documentary, unrelated to SW, is the efforts put into making Superman fly for the Christopher Reeves Supes movie. Apparently they tried catapulting dummies through the air, radio controlled flying contraptions that looked a bit stealth bomber with red wings supposed to be the cape. And finally a new system of front projection was developed which meant the actor didn't have to move but the camera floated around them and via some mirrors and wotnot the background footage was there in shot with the actor. No post-production rotoscoping or compositing involved. Clever.

One of my former bosses was an extra in the Niagara Falls scenes of Superman II - he has a cape from the filming. I told him to get it authenticated & sell it for a bazillion dollars, but I think he prefers having it to support the truthfulness of the story.

The dummy of the kid they tossed into the falls is pretty bad.
How'd your ex boss get the cape. Surely the whole costume was guarded like gold during filming?

that first Superman they had a stunt guy actually suspended on wires go in front of the speeding train when young Clark is doing his speed run home. If I remember right the train missed the stunt guy by a cat's whisker as the crane didn't lift him quite as high as planned or something. You just wouldn't get that these days. Admitedly when you watch the movie the shot looks like a guy on wires but it was all practical. The train was going at regular speed too. Used to have a making of book on the first two movies. Been fascinated by the reality of movie-making since I was knee high to a grasshopper. It's weird dual enjoyment of sitting there following the characters and action but also figuring out the separate elements like practical set, model, matte painting, back projection. Actor or stunt guy. It's never bothered me knowing how stuff was done. The end result is still magnificent to view. I guess I wanted to discover the secrets as I've always harboured dreams of making movies myself. Never going to happen but dreams is dreams. You've got to have a dream. If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?

Getting back to SW, I read somewhere that the alien meat Chewie goes after on Endor's moon was actually the butt end of a deer with a set of teeth shoved up the butthole and teddy bear eyes glued on the butt cheeks. You can see a deer like leg hanging down from it in freeze frame and still shots. The shock of white hair between the eyes does look an awful lot like a deer tail. Peter Mayhew gets really close to it mimiming Chewie about to take a bite and if that was real meat hanging there in the heat of summer the smell must have been something else. Not to mention the flies. Pain for art's sake I'd say.

Apparently they kept getting damaged & many were created - maybe the wind machine or something was causing them to rip & fray? I can't recall - anyhow they're apparently not super rare as many were around. He was working for the Niagara Falls park police as a 20-something & they were required daily for security & even got to stand in a couple of the scenes - I've honestly never gone over it frame by frame looking for him - but I'm quite sure he said he wasn't the only one that got a cast-off from the filming.

Real story: I don't know, but he was pulling pubes out of his teeth for a few days.

Pubes are nutritious.

And back then, there wouldn't have been any manscaping going on. Out of his throat more likely.

If I say "Margot Kidder's big, black, furry thicket of bush" I hope you all get that image in your head and throw up a tiny tiny bit in your mouths. Heh heh.

Ned Beatty's withered, severed wang in your bowl of Cheerios™ is how I counter that.

My making of Star Wars, Empire and Jedi tomes arrived. Earlier than expected. If you want me, I shall be in my lair poring over them...

Tom Foolery wrote:If I say "Margot Kidder's big, black, furry thicket of bush" I hope you all get that image in your head and throw up a tiny tiny bit in your mouths. Heh heh.

I see your Margot Kidder and raise you a Demi Moore gorilla panties.